


Making Music

by prin_zyth



Category: Seraphina - Rachel Hartman, Shadow Scale - Rachel Hartman, Tess of the Road - Rachel Hartman
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, F/F, I'm Bad At Tagging, Improvisation, Music, One-Shot, Polyamory, Pregnancy, harpsichord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 23:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15593247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prin_zyth/pseuds/prin_zyth
Summary: Phina misses Selda, and she composes a piece about her.Alternatively titled: "Selda's Song"





	Making Music

Even for an introvert like Seraphina, staying at the queen's cottage to wait out her pregnancy became profoundly lonely after a while.

She'd only been able to see Kiggs once since she'd left, as he had been overwhelmed with the duty of running the Guard. She ached with missing him; it had been months since she'd last seen him.

But right now, she was missing Selda most of all. Selda had her share of duties to attend to as well, of course. St. Masha and St. Daan, she was the queen! But she’d been able to spend more time with Phina. For the past few weeks, though, she’d been on a diplomatic mission to Ninys. Missing Kiggs was an old wound; missing Selda was deep, fresh, and all-consuming in Phina’s mind.

Her only real distraction was in her daily harpsichord practice, but she always became lost in thought and found herself searching for Glisselda in the music. This continued day after day, until one day, a song emerged from Phina’s aimless wanderings.

It started off differently every time. Phina would be playing something absentmindedly and would gradually drift into Selda’s song. Her left hand would play simple major and dominant chords with the occasional extension, while her right hand jumped around playfully, striking short, staccato notes and carving out a simple, pervasive melody, the kind that you couldn’t get out of your head no matter what came after it, because it was simply easier to define the piece by that aspect of it than to dig deeper.

That was how people thought of Selda: shallow, carefree, one-dimensional.* But Seraphina knew that that wasn’t who she really was.

After 32 bars of this light, naïve melody, the song took on a new mood. The old sound was still there, but Phina added a second counter-melody. It wasn’t sad, per se, but the addition of some minor chords in the left hand pulled out certain notes that gave the piece an inexplicably melancholy timbre.

Phina continued with this melody for a few minutes before she felt it was time to change to the next “movement” of sorts. The notes slowed down and the unique melody of before turned into a series of arpeggios. Phina’s fingers fluttered across the keys at this part, impulsively trying out new intervals and inversions - whatever seemed right. At this point in the piece, she closed her eyes and allowed the music to engulf her completely.

This movement was overwhelmingly sad and without hope. It lacked direction and organization. Although the piece was entirely in Seraphina’s head, this movement was even more improvised than the rest of them. This represented the time when Phina was gone on her journey to find the ityasaari and Jannoula came to Goredd. It had been hard on all of them, but especially on Selda. Phina was almost jealous of Jannoula at times; although she’d never said so, it was clear to Phina that Selda had fallen in love with her.

The third movement can’t really be put into words. The closest descriptors are “content,” “serene.” Phina would usually play it with straight eighths: quick but not rushed, wild but reined in. This represented Glisselda and Seraphina’s future together. No one could say what it was going to be, but it was certainly going to be an adventure.

She always ended the piece with an open fifth. It was perfect: not major or minor. Ambiguous. Hopeful. Uncertain. It was an uncomfortable sound, because it was always threatening to tip one way or another, and it felt strangely incomplete. Nothing could ever really capture her relationship with Selda, but Phina often felt that this was the closest that anything could get.

Like this sound, their relationship would make people uncomfortable if they knew about it. It was different; it didn’t fall into an easy category; it was unique and hard to name or describe.

But to them, their relationship was perfectly melodious. Their harmony was never clear-cut, but to them, it was utterly and truly beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> *60% of the reason I wrote this was because my uncle literally described Glisselda to me as "one-dimensional." It took all of my self-control not to start screaming at him right there. I probably would've done so anyway if not for the fact that my little cousin was there, too.
> 
> Thanks for reading! It's trash, I know. I've been doing a theater camp for 6 hours a day, and because my role is tiny, I end up sitting around for hours on end, which is the other 40% of why this happened.
> 
> Check out my other one-shots, and if you like Star Trek: Discovery, the first chapter of my crossover with Seraphina is on the way, so stay tuned, and check out the introduction I wrote!
> 
> I also make some of the only Seraphina content in existence on YouTube! My account is Prin Zyth (like on AO3, but without the underscore).
> 
> Oh and lol, by the way, I came up with some ship names (with my sister's help):
> 
> Phina/Selda = Phelda  
> Phina/Kiggs = Phiggs  
> Selda/Phina/Kiggs = Gleraphiggs (props to my sister for that one)  
> Eskar/Orma = Eskorma  
> Josquin/Tess = Jess  
> Rynald/Kenneth = Ryneth (because "Kennald" sounds like "kenneled")  
> Viridius/Lars = Vars
> 
> If you're ever bored and want to talk to me about Seraphina, Amy Unbounded, Star Trek, Steven Universe, etc. then hit me up on Tumblr @phinas-garden!


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